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28 May 2016

Michel Seghers qualified as a doctor at the Catholic
University of Luvain in 1957. As an alternative to Belgian military service
he did a three-year medical internship in the then Belgian Congo, first on a
sugar cane plantation, and then at the University of Lovanian in
Léopoldville (renamed Kinshasha in 1966), which was affiliated with the his alma
mater. His wife was with him, and as it happened each of their three children would be born on different continents.

From 1962 he worked for a year in Cincinnati, USA, where he gained experience
in plastic surgery at the Christ and Children’s Hospital. He accepted a position
at the University of Léopoldville in 1963 where he did plastic and
reconstructive surgery, but returned to Brussels in 1966 during the instability
with the change of government that resulted in Mobutu Sese Seko
coming to power.

In October 1967 Peggy
Wijnen died of a blood clot shortly after transgender surgery. Her surgeon,
Andre Fardeau, was charged with inflicting fatal blows and wounds with
premeditation and willingly but without intent to kill, but died during the
trial. This attracted Segher’s attention, and shortly afterwards a French
psychiatrist introduced him to a patient who lived and passed as female and had
attempted suicide several times in despair. Seghers studied the literature, and
realized that he was the only hope for the patient. The operation at St Joseph’s
Hospital was successful, and afterwards Seghers communicated the facts to the Belgian
Society for Plastic Surgery.

There was another Belgian surgeon who was known for attempting to build
extra-large vaginas and ended up with vagina-rectal fistulae. Against this
background, two of Seghers’ early patients requested penectomy and orchiectomy
only, that is without a vagina.

At his clinic first at St Joseph’s Hospital and then from March 1991 at
Avenue de Broqueville 60, Brussels (map)
he performed over 1,600 mtf genital operations, and some ftm top surgery. He
generally insisted that a patient be 21 or older, but did the operation on a
younger US girl who was accompanied by her mother.

In 1988 a registered nurse from the US, Michelle Hunt, herself trans, stayed
on in Brussels after her operation. She met Dr Seghers’ US patients at the airport, and took them to
his office. She also toured trans groups in the US, and made appointments for
surgery where appropriate. However she held back the name of the surgeon to
protect him from enquiry letters which generated criticism. In Fall 1993 there
was conflict between Michelle Hunt and the Ingersoll Gender Center in that their
respective booklets on Dr Seghers' services were similar.

Veronica Jean Brown assured her readers that Dr Seghers is "American trained'. Well he did one year in Cincinatti. He did six years in Zaire. So 'Zaire trained' would be more descriptive. This is actually very relevant. He got a lot of experience reconstructing bodies that had been seriously damaged by war and violence. That kind of training makes a good surgeon. Other sex-change surgeons who learned their skill in war zones include: David Wesser (Vietnam War), Stanley Biber (Korean War), Howard Jones (WWII), Georges Burou (WWII), Harold Gillies (WWI & WWII).

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About Zagria

I have a social science degree. I spent several years in the 70s doing Gay Lib counselling, and moved on to organizing trans groups. I was rejected by the Clarke Institute (now CAMH) in the mid 1980s, probably because I do not match either of their stereotypes, but was accepted by Russel Reid on our first meeting in late 1987, and had surgery from James Dalrymple some months later. I have mainly worked as an IT consultant. I have been with the same husband for 45 years.